I actually mean the title of this post literally-- Backstory, my husband and I have been together for 11 years, married 9. We met in college in a big city, where neither of us really ever needed to drive because public transportation was plentiful and cheap. I come from a family with a lot of mechanics, and everyone (including women) takes a lot of pride in being good drivers and car owners, but I didn't have my license when we met so it didn't really come up. I was kind of rebelling by not caring about cars and stuff.

Fast forward a few years, we're ready to move out of the city and buy a house in the suburbs. Suddenly the driving thing becomes an issue because the advantages of the city disappear. I immediately get my license, and it's no problem except that he... didn't. It took a long, long time for him to finally learn to drive and get a license, lots of fights about it (we were decidedly NOT RP at the time) and meanwhile I was kind of in charge of all transportation. You can imagine how our masculine-feminine relationship was affected by that.

Since then, he has really changed a lot (in good ways), and so have I-- I've done my best to take a submissive role and stop bulldozing him, and he's been much more proactive in his own life and stepped up to being a leader.

But the driving thing kind of remains. He does drive, but I NEVER feel safe in the car with him. He doesn't do anything too terrible, but he has done things like carelessly missed stop signs, he cannot park to save his life, he often speeds and doesn't even realize it, etc. I find myself often saying things like "omg brake lights!" because I'm not positive he'll stop. I'm a total backseat driver, but it comes from a place of truly not believing he will actually see those brake lights and stop. I feel like I'm waiting until the last possible second to tell him anything and that without that, he'd crash.

I know the obvious answer is "Well stop doing that and trust your husband!" But it's just extremely hard to do when I'm in the moment and I think we're gonna ram into a big truck if I don't speak up. He's honestly the BEST husband in absolutely every other way-- he's an amazing provider and he treats me like gold. We have sex literally almost every night and I do my best for him (tmi sorry). It's just the one nagging issue left that feels like kind of a big deal, possibly just because of the way I grew up, if a man wasn't competent with cars, he wasn't a man. It feels very symbolic, too, like literally "driving one's own life" sort of thing. Maybe you all can knock some sense into me please? How do I calm this one leftover bulldozer trait of mine?